Toorcamp: Type A Machines

Type A Machines designs and builds 3D printers in San Francisco. [Miloh], one of the founders, brought two of their flagship Series 1 printers to Toorcamp. He printed out a variety of models including water tight cups and quadcopter arms.

The RepRap Arduino MEGA Pololu Shield (RAMPS) is used to drive the stepper motors for each axis, as well as the extruder. This is attached to an Arduino MEGA running the Marlin RepRap firmware. Type A Machines ships the printer with Polylactic Acid (PLA) filament, which is biodegradable.

On software side, you start with a 3D model in STL format. This can be exported from 3D software such as Google SketchUp or Autodesk 123D. You then need a slicer to generate G-code and machine control software to command the printer. [Miloh] used Slic3r and Repetier for his workflow, but he also pointed out a good summary of 3D printer workflows.

The Series 1 was launched at the Bay Area Maker Faire this past May. It has a print volume of 1200 mL, which is the largest print volume of any desktop printer around. The Series 1 brings another option into the low-cost 3D printer market.